stating that "[t]he Board must determine whether a prisoner is presently too dangerous to be deemed suitable for parole based on the ‘circumstances tending to show unsuitability’ and the 'circumstances tending to show suitability' ” and that "the denial of parole may be predicated on a prisoner’s commitment offense only where the Board can 'point to factors beyond the minimum elements of the crime for which the inmate was committed’ that demonstrate the inmate will, at the time of the suitability hearing, present a danger to society if released,” such as whether the offense was carried out in a dispassionate and calculated manner, the offense was carried out in a manner which demonstrates an exceptionally callous disregard for human suffering, and the motive for the crime is inexplicable or very trivial in relation to the offense
How later courts described this case
- stating that "[t]he Board must determine whether a prisoner is presently too dangerous to be deemed suitable for parole based on the ‘circumstances tending to show unsuitability’ and the 'circumstances tending to show suitability' ” and that "the denial of parole may be predicated on a prisoner’s commitment offense only where the Board can 'point to factors beyond the minimum elements of the crime for which the inmate was committed’ that demonstrate the inmate will, at the time of the suitability hearing, present a danger to society if released,” such as whether the offense was carried out in a dispassionate and calculated manner, the offense was carried out in a manner which demonstrates an exceptionally callous disregard for human suffering, and the motive for the crime is inexplicable or very trivial in relation to the offense
- "It deprives a whole class of cases of their normal value as governing authority for the circuit which has decided them."
- “California Penal Code section 3041 [ 7 ] vests [petitioner] and all other California prisoners whose sentences provide for the possibility of parole with a constitutionally protected liberty interest in the receipt of a parole release date, a liberty interest that is protected by the procedural safeguards of the Due Process Clause.” (footnote added)
- “California Penal Code section 3041[ 6 ] vests [petitioner] and all other California prisoners whose sentences provide for the possibility of parole with a constitutionally protected liberty interest in the receipt of a parole release date, a liberty interest that is protected by the procedural safeguards of the Due Process Clause.” (footnote added)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in Judge Reinhardt’s opinion. I write separately for two reasons.
First, I am not satisfied that there was no reason to continue to hold Irons in prison other than the circumstances of his callously senseless murder of another person for trivial reasons. While his answer to whether he still had the rage that led him to kill someone 1 can easily be read in *860 an innocuous manner, it need not be, and the Commission could interpret it to mean that he might. At any rate, I see nothing wrong with being very, very cautious about releasing a person from prison and onto society when he has committed the kind of crime that Irons committed and has done it as flagitiously as he did it. The Board has a right (nay, an obligation) to be exceedingly cautious about setting him free.
Second, Judge Noonan has issued a concurring opinion in which he decries the fact that we (and, probably, the United States Supreme Court) have deemed the AEDPA to be constitutional. I do not join that, and its mere filing would elicit no response from me but for the fact that Judge Reinhardt has concurred in the concurrence. Because that means that two members of the panel have joined that opinion, it might be seen to indicate that the panel is speaking for the court and that the court is, therefore, attacking itself. It might be thought that we have found a new way to create an umbrageous, or stealth, conflict in our jurisprudence, which district courts and attorneys had better take into account. That, I know, is not the intention of my colleagues, who have carefully crafted the concurring opinion to indicate that, at least at this point, they merely wish to express their strongly-held views about the strictures of the AEDPA, without creating a conflict in the law of this circuit.
Thus, I respectfully concur in Judge Reinhardt’s opinion only.
. The testimony went this way, in part:
Attorney Schmidt [Irons' attorney]: You gave the impression, in response to one of the questions, almost that if it wasn’t Mr. Nicholson [the victim], that it might have been somebody else....
Inmate Irons: Looking back on it, after the fact, I — now, I guess that those two questions relate to each other. Looking back, I realize that I was responsible. And in that sense, it could have been somebody else. I mean, I don’t mean I was going to kill somebody at random, but the circumstances — some set of circumstances that led me to that rage, I was primed for it. I was — I had let myself become that person who could kill and it could have been somebody else....
Attorney Schmidt: Do you have any of that rage now?
Inmate Irons: I don’t think so. I try to make a real effort to examine my motives, *860 to look inside of myself.... I — I think I've dealt with most of these issues. If they arise in some other way, I’ll look for the appropriate help.